Late-night Visit From Security Contractor Helped Spark Wikileaks’ Julian Assange Asylum Bid

Posted by Alcyone _Featured_, Politics Wednesday, July 25th, 2012

By Andrew Fowler and Wayne Harley, Australian Broadcasting Company 

July 24, 2012

For the first time, Mr Assange has revealed full details of the sequence of events that led to him moving into the embassy last month.

Mr Assange told Four Corners he only took the decision because after a number of “dramatic events” he feared his bail was about to be cut short.

For more than 500 days the WikiLeaks founder had been fighting extradition to Sweden where he is wanted for questioning over alleged sex crimes, including rape.

Speaking from the embassy by phone, Mr Assange said he became suspicious when the Swedish government publicly announced it would detain him “without charge in prison under severe conditions”.

What happened next made him believe he may soon be taken into custody.

“On the same evening, the UK government security contractors that maintained the electronic manacle around my leg turned up unannounced at 10.30pm and insisted on fitting another manacle to my leg, saying that this was part of routine maintenance, which did not sound to be credible,” he said.

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